Katsumata Chieko

Born 1950, Shizuoka, Japan

After attending Japan Women's University, KATSUMATA CHIEKO received a grant in 1972 from the French government to study industrial design in Paris. While there, after a chance meeting with the well-known American potter Fance Franck (1931-2008), she was inspired to pursue a career in ceramics. Upon returning to Kyoto in 1978, she began to focus on the application of color to clay under the mentorship of Yanagihara Mutsuo. Instead of painting directly on her biomorphic, vegetal vessels, she covers the form with a thin piece of cloth through which she repeatedly applies color, leaving no trace of her brushwork. After repeated firings, followed by new applications of color, the surfaces take on a penetrating vivid color and soft textural appearance. She has exhibited extensively both in and outside of Japan, including France, Holland and the U.S.  

Selected Public Collections (continued):

Asian Art Museum, San Francisco, CA
Brooklyn Museum, NY
Chazen Museum of Art, Madison, WI
Cincinnati Art Museum, OH
Georgia Museum of Art, University of Georgia, Athens, GA
Herbert F. Johnson Museum of Art, Cornell University, Ithaca, NY
Honolulu Museum of Art, HI
Institute of Ceramic Studies, Shigaraki Ceramic Cultural Park, Japan
Ishikawa Prefectural Kutani Research Institute, Japan
Japan Foundation, Tokyo, Japan
Latvijas Nacional Makslas Muzejs, Riga, Latvia
Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York, NY
Minneapolis Institute of Art, MN
Musée Ariana, Geneva, Switzerland
Musée Cernuschi, Paris, France
Musée des Beaux-Arts de Lyon, France
Musée national des arts asiatiques-GUIMET (Musée Guimet), Paris, France
Musée national de céramique, Sèvres, France
Museum of Modern Ceramic Art, Gifu, Japan
National Museum of Modern Art, Tokyo, Japan
Office of Public Works, Trim, Ireland
Peabody Essex Museum, Salem, MA
Phoenix Art Museum, AZ
Portland Art Museum, OR
Samuel P. Harn Museum of Art, Gainesville, FL
San Antonio Museum of Art, TX
Shigaraki Ceramic Cultural Park, Japan
Smith College, Northampton, MA
Worcester Art Museum, MA
World Ceramic Exposition Foundation, Seoul, South Korea
Yale University Art Gallery, CT